FLEUROTICA

About This Event

A floral fashion show that's exactly as strange and wonderful as it sounds — Chicago florists, fashion designers, and students building runway-ready garments entirely out of flowers, leaves, moss, and other plant material, staged under the Conservatory's own century-old glass.

It's a benefit gala, not a standalone event — proceeds go directly to the Garfield Park Conservatory itself, which opened in 1908 as what its designer, landscape architect Jens Jensen, intended to be the largest publicly owned conservatory under one roof anywhere in the world. Jensen replaced three smaller, decades-old greenhouses with a single steel-and-glass structure shaped like a Midwestern haystack, seven connected 'rooms' spread across more than two acres, including the Fern Room's own indoor waterfall built from stratified stone. FLEUROTICA has grown into a genuine fixture on the city's fall design calendar over its several years running, without losing the fundraiser's original purpose.

Worth knowing: no ticket price or specific showtime has been published yet — check garfieldconservatory.org/fleurotica for updates as the date gets closer.